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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Museum of Fine Arts at FSU shows "Cute and Creepy"

Tallahassee, FL.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University is proud to present "Cute and Creepy" on view from October 14th through November 20th. With the recent and publicly-celebrated exhibitions of Tim Burton at MoMA and Edward Gorey at the Wadsworth Athenaeum, curator Carrie Ann Baade feels that now is the time to revel in the genre of the macabre. "Cute and Creepy" features works in a variety of media by 25 contemporary artists including Jon Beinart, Kelly Boehmer, Scott G. Brooks, Ray Caesar, Kate Clark, Timothy Cummings, Lori Field, Laurie Hogin, Mark Hosford, Jessica Joslin, Richard A. Kirk, Kris Kuksi, Laurie Lipton, Travis Louie, Chris Mars, Elizabeth McGrath, Kathie Olivas, Marion Peck, Judith Schaechter, Greg Simkins, Heidi Taillefer, Christian Rex van Minnen, Martin Wittfooth, Thomas Woodruff and Chet Zar.
Describing the exhibition, Baade says: "After growing up wondering whether all the great art had already been made, I feel there are more amazing artists working now than ever before. Over the past six years, I have exhibited with the artists taking part in this show or have discovered their work through attending their exhibitions. It's been such a pleasure to see the rise of this wave of dark art and the Pop surrealists that this exhibition promotes. To see beauty in the carnivalesque or macabre, in freaks and in monsters, is a matter of aesthetics. Most of us can agree on the artistic value of a Claude Monet or Titian but this work is for a daring audience, an audience open to exploring the strange beauty and the ecstasy inherent in our culture's aversions. There is something that makes us uneasy when confronted by the weird or the unusual. Those who can appreciate both have come to anticipate and enjoy unexpected sensations. Work of this nature is not going to be an underground movement any longer: the grotesque is going mainstream".

The purpose of the Museum of Fine Arts, Florida State University (FSU) is twofold: to enrich the university and the community by exhibiting works of art which expand the understanding of art today and of the past and to serve as a teaching instrument for art instruction, particularly by holding exhibitions of informational value to students and the general public and by providing student artists with an arena to exhibit their work. The Museum of Fine Arts, a division of the College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance at Florida State University, at 16,000 sq ft. with 9000 sq. ft. of exhibition space and a permanent collection of over 4000 objects is a major art exhibition space and an integral part of the Tallahassee community. At the time of its formation in 1950 it occupied one small room and was administered by faculty on a volunteer basis who operated without specific funding. Spurred on particularly by the move in 1970 into the Fine Arts Building, a complex that houses Mainstage Theatre as well, and by the establishment of the School of Visual Arts in 1973, the growth of the Museum has been significant and steady. The staff consists of five full-time employees, quarter-time employees who are academic interns, and a rotating population of student volunteers. The choice of quality exhibitions plays a dominant role in the Museum's efforts to reach its goals with respect to the general public and the university community. The lower level exhibitions run concurrently with upper gallery changing exhibitions. The scope ranges from national-impact, scholarly presentations of works never previously exhibited, to the work of regional artists or students. This balance between response to the artistic community and leadership in treating art in a consciously educational way reflects the Museum's perception of its role in the region. In the last several years the number of critically valid exhibitions has risen, as has national distribution of research in the form of catalogues. Visit the museum's website at ...http://www.mofa.fsu.edu

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THE MYSTIC OTTO RAPP

About Me

Born in 1944 in Felixdorf, Lower Austria, I lived and was educated in Vienna, where later I worked as a clerk in the Transport and Insurance Business. After completing service in the Austrian Air Force, I traveled throughout Europe, eventually settling in Stockholm, Sweden.

As a Painter I was initially self taught, studying in the various Galleries and Museums. In Vienna, I was often ‘hanging out’ at the Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste, where I admired the work of the Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus represented there by the Professors Rudolf Hausner and Arik Brauer. Other members were Ernst Fuchs, Wolfgang Hutter and Anton Lehmden, who had studied together at the Academy under Prof. Albert Paris Gütersloh.

In Stockholm, I found out that I was washing dishes in the very same Restaurant where years earlier another Viennese Artist, Fritz Hundertwasser, the ‘Austrian Gaudi’ as he was later known as, had worked the same job. Encouraged by an art dealer in Gamla Stan, I began to paint more seriously. Busking on the streets of Gamla Stan with a Dutch artist, my very first painting was sold to a passer-by by my artist friend while I stood in the employment office line - this paid for a lavish meal for both of us that day.

Traveling around in 1968, I wound up in Western Canada where eventually I settled in Lethbridge, Alberta. It was in Canada where the majority of my mature work was produced (under the sponsorship of a small Lethbridge Gallery).

Working for the Canadian Pacific Railway, I quit in 1977 to attend the Bachelor of Fine Arts Program at the University of Lethbridge, graduating (with great distinction) in 1982.

In Canada, I participated in many exhibitions, and held several Solo Shows, culminating in the pivotal 1994 showing at The Prairie Art Gallery in Grande Prairie, Alberta, which earned me the moniker The Mystic .

Throughout my years in Canada, I had been the subject of many reviews and newspaper articles as well as local television shows in Calgary and Lethbridge while being active as an Artist, Art Instructor, Curator, Studio Technician, Art Critic and Juror.